Guster concert ft. Kishi Bashi and all of my happiness
I turned in my Math3 set at 2pm, my CS21 set at 4pm, my CS2 set at 4:58pm, and then I headed to Anaheim for a concert at the House of Blues in Disneyland!
Disneyland at night: creepy.
We knew this would be a long night, so we got all of work done ahead of time. Still, it did not prepare me for standing in the venue and stressing about all the problem sets I wasn’t doing. Caltech syndrome, I guess.
Once the music started, I stopped caring about my problem sets.
Inside of the House of Blues: small venue!
The opener was an artist named Kishi Bashi. He started with some improvisation, playing his violin and singing into microphones that would loop riffs he made. Some of it seemed scripted, some of it seemed made up on the fly. He was having a great time, and about eight people in the audience seemed to know who he was.
Towards the end of his set, he started playing what sounded like more polished songs. He played three songs off his latest album, which sounded awesome. I guess experimental music isn’t really my thing :P
Half an hour after Kishi Bashi left the stage, Guster came on. If you don’t know Guster, picture an indie rock band from Vermont by way of Tufts University, except they’re all 40 now. Are you picturing a mix of skinny pants and T-shirts, the errant blazer, a butt-ton of enthusiasm, and the occasional joke about how old they and their fans are? Ok, you got it.
Guster is my favorite band. Their music makes me incredibly happy: it’s upbeat, emotional, soothing, energizing. It’s smooth and calm but makes me want to jump up and down a lot. When they came onstage, the crowd (picture a mix of hipster and lumberjack) went crazy.
They started with the first song off of their new album (they’ve been playing music since 1991), Long Night. They spent their set alternating between new songs and old favorites. When you have a discography that spans 25 years and a diehard fan base, you can definitely do that. They could play a different set list every night on tour and never get bored.
I meant it when I said “diehard fans,” by the way. The third song they played was The Captain, and the crowd went NUTS. Everyone was singing the whole time. They even brought Kishi Bashi back onstage to play the violin solos in Satellite (one of their most well-known songs).
At the end of the night I was stress-free, incredibly happy, and my feet hurt soooo badly. Worth it.
That’s one good night off campus in the books.
